


RC #21 Mission #1: Video Games Rot Your Brains

by Damian_Thorne



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Protectors of the Plot Continuum
Genre: Gamer Harry Potter, Gen, Video Game Mechanics, why is that a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-25 13:13:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30089607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damian_Thorne/pseuds/Damian_Thorne
Summary: PPC initiate Kaito adjusts to PPC life as he takes on his first Stu.
Kudos: 1





	RC #21 Mission #1: Video Games Rot Your Brains

**Author's Note:**

> The PPC and all its intellectual property belong to Jay and Acacia, the original authors (although arguably it belongs to the entire PPC community). However, RC #21 is mine, as well as Tanner Rice and Kaito Hoshino, so donut steal unless you want to be trapped in an MMO and cursed with eternal blandness. The Harry Potter series belongs to J.K. Rowling, and the fic being missioned, Multiverse Gamer, belongs to LilliannagoddessoftheopHarry68, and can be found here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13283465/1/Multiverse-Gamer.

It was 12:00 PM according to the old-timey clock hung on the far wall, and yet Kaito was still in bed. He wasn’t normally the type to sleep in; it was just that he could barely remember the last time he’d ever been in a bed.

He ran his hand over the patch of exposed white mattress besides his pillow, taking in its almost alien softness on his hand. He got up and looked down at the three blankets (and sheet!) he’d pulled over himself before going to bed. That was probably a bad idea. The stench of sweaty socks filled the air, and turning his head, he could see a huge wet spot on his pillow right next to the brown stains that had been there when he’d first entered the room. He threw the stack of bedding off, got out of bed, left his room and walked to the little bathroom to his left.

A malnourished face stared back at him in the mirror. His beard was dirty and unshaven, and his hair was no better. Huge bags hung underneath his brown eyes. No wonder he hadn’t been able to use his Quirk lately. If that face walked up to him and asked him what he was doing, he’d run away, too.

**_BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!!!_ **

The sudden noise startled the thief – well, ex-thief, now. He stepped backwards, tripped on the tub, and barely stopped himself from hitting his head. Getting up from his fall, he walked through the door to the main RC and up to the console opposite the bathroom, which read [NEW MISSION] in bold letters.

Kaito walked over to the console and sat down in the desk chair facing it. In front of him was a keyboard with English letters and a round thing he couldn’t identify connected to the console with a wire. He tried all the buttons on the keyboard until he found the one that turned off the beeping, then he tried to decipher the text on the screen. Unfortunately, while he could technically read it (English was the only class he remembered anything from), he couldn’t actually understand any of it.

“Isn’t the Universal Translator supposed to… ah, nevermind.” Kaito went to his room to throw on his uniform, then sat in a nice armchair (by his standards) that was in the middle of the RC. He’d just wait for his partner, who should be arriving any minute, to decipher the report.

Any minute now...

Seconds became minutes became half an hour as Kaito sat in the desk chair, twiddling his thumbs, watching the digital clock on the oven, waiting for whoever it was to hurry up and get here already. What could possibly be taking this person so long? The Personnel people said that they’d let his new partner know right away…

Kaito stood up. That was enough waiting. He’d have to find this partner himself.

He walked to the RC door, reached for the doorknob – and the door hit him in the face as it suddenly opened.

Kaito stumbled backward as the person behind the door let out a surprised yelp. “I’m sorry!” the stranger shouted. “I didn’t see you behind the door!” He put one foot into the RC to look at Kaito with concerned brown eyes. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” Kaito said automatically, rubbing his face with his right hand. “Please be more careful next time, though.”

“Oh, thank God.” the stranger said. “This is RC #21, right?”

“Yes, it is.” Kaito confirmed. He then realized who this intruder must be. “You wouldn’t happen to be my new partner, by any chance?”

“Uhh… yeah, I am.” the stranger confirmed. He looked nervous and sounded guilty. “I’m very sorry that I’m late, but we got a mission at the last minute and it took a while to deal with Ms. Mary Sue. But I’m here now.” He was lanky and pale, about Kaito’s height. In the way he carried himself, the way he clutched the handle of the roller bag he dragged behind him, the way he took such deep breaths, and the way he adjusted his square-rimmed glasses, Kaito recognized the telltale signs of a wimp.

“Well, you came at the right time.” Kaito said, smiling. “I was just about to go find you myself. You see, there’s been a message on the console for…” Kaito checked the clock on the wall. “…half an hour now, but it’s in English, so I can’t understand it. I was hoping you could help me with that?”

Kaito’s partner stared at him, confused. “You can’t read English?”

“No, I can’t. They gave me this thing that’s supposed to translate things for you, but it isn’t working. I can understand you just fine, though.” Kaito explained.

Kaito’s partner smiled, and turned his vision to the inside of the RC. “Okay, fine then- OH, MY GOD!”

Kaito was stupefied by his new partner’s outburst as the latter raced to the console, dragging his squeaking luggage behind him, and started reading the message. “We have a mission!” he yelled. “We had a mission and I was late- I’m sorry I didn’t get here earlier- I just- it’s- _aaaaaaaaaahhhhh!_ ” His words devolved into an incoherent scream as he jumped out of the desk chair, hastily opened his luggage, and started throwing its contents onto the floor as he searched for something.

Kaito recovered and stood over his frantic partner. “Hey, chill out, buddy. There’s nothing to freak out about.”

Kaito’s partner didn’t respond at first, but eventually the message got to him. He stopped frantically going through his luggage, looking for God-knows-what in there, and looked up at Kaito, taking a deep breath. “Okay… I guess… I overreacted there… Sorry, I was… a bit… on edge. Whew.”

“No problem.” Kaito lied.

“Do you know _Harry Potter_?” Kaito’s partner asked him.

Kaito took a moment to place the unfamiliar name. “ _Harry Potter_ … yeah, I read the first three books when they were training me.”

“You got _training?_ ” The stranger momentarily gave Kaito a look of disbelief. “Well, anyway, this is a mission into Harry Potter. Basically the Stu of the Day replaced Harry with himself and decided, ‘Hmm, wouldn’t it be cool if I randomly shoved video game mechanics into here for no reason and used them to give myself all sorts of speshul powers?’”

“...so he’s one of the ‘Mary Sue’ creatures we fight here?” Kaito asked.

“Yeah, basically.” Kaito’s partner continued. “The mission does involve spoilers for the later books – sorry about that – but I’ll try to keep it as vague as possible.” Kaito’s partner produced a backpack from the luggage bag, and promptly opened it and set it on the floor next to him. “Do you have all your mission stuff?”

“I guess. I have everything they gave me, anyway.” Kaito replied.

“Good. Well, all I need to do is pack my stuff and we should be ready to go.” With that, Kaito’s partner went back to doing just that.

Kaito walked into his room and picked up the small satchel that he’d put on the bedside table, checking inside for all the equipment he’d been given: the canon-checking device with the red button; the portal device with the three dials; the neuralyzer; the disguise machine; and finally, a dagger for assassinations. After ensuring everything was in place, he closed the satchel and walked outside his room to watch his partner hurriedly finish putting everything in the backpack and put it back on.

It occurred to Kaito that he didn’t know the guy’s name. “So, what’s your name?” he said casually.

“Uhh…” The man looked at Kaito. “Tanner Rice, DMS.” He put one last thing into his backpack and zipped it closed. “Alright, I _think_ I’m ready to go…”

“Ready when you are.” Kaito answered.

With that, Kaito’s partner opened the portal to the fic through the console, and both agents stepped through.

~*~*~

If the agents had been sane enough to read the Words of the fic before jumping in, they might have concluded that there was a giant ominous blue screen displaying the words 

**_You Have Died_ **

**_Game Over_ **

in white block letters. That was not what greeted Kaito and Tanner as they stepped into the fic, as that would imply effective and adequate scene-setting. Instead, the duo stepped into a grey Generic Space, where a very old TV lay on the ground, displaying the text in white on a blue background.

Kaito looked around at his surroundings. He’d already gotten used to not being able to identify what the walls were made of in HQ, but he was still fascinated by how he couldn’t come up with any description of the entire area other than a space – not color, not size, not anything. There was a floor under his feet, but it wasn’t so much a real thing with attributes as something to be on. Nothing more, and nothing less.

Then Kaito felt his mind go blank.

When he came to, Tanner was standing over him, apologizing over and over for letting… what happened to him?

“What are you apologizing for? What happened?” Kaito asked.

“I forgot this was a first-person fic, so I didn’t bring the dummy!” Tanner said. “I’m sorry!”

Some distance away, what looked like a crash test dummy stared at the TV, which now read **Installing Chaos's Game v2.0** above a white progress bar that was almost empty.

“Say what again?” Kaito asked.

“This fic is written in first person, meaning it’s from the point of view of the characters.” Tanner explained. “I’m not sure if entering a first-person fic that’s from a canon character’s perspective is a problem, but if it’s from the point of view of the Sue, if you don’t deploy a Crash Dummy the Sue will possess the first person to enter the-”

“Oh, _those_ Crash Dummies.” Kaito said.

“So, you understand what they are?’ Tanner asked.

“Yeah, they gave me the crash course on all the equipment here. It’s really hard remembering all the names, though.”

“You’ll get used to it.” Tanner smiled, then his face became more serious. “While you were unconscious, I collected four charges: One for shoving game mechanics into Harry Potter for no reason, one for replacing Harry Potter , one for doing the Manipulative!Dumbledore thing that so many fanfics love to do, and one for… uhh… one for… bashing Hermione and Ron. Actually, I think that should be two.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. When did all that happen?” Kaito asked.

“not!Harry’s inner thoughts mentioned Dumbledore ‘ **holding the wizarding world back** ’ and that he was planning to make some ‘ **real friends** ’ instead of ‘ **those traitors** ,’ which we can assume means Hermione and Ron.” Tanner explained.

Kaito nodded hesitantly, deciding for now to accept the premise that Tanner was a mind-reader. “I’m still not sure what’s going on here… I mean, where are we?”

“That’s simple!” Tanner said, smiling. “In the fic, Harry dies in the final battle in the seventh book, so… uh… he ends up in a loading screen place thing. He’s given the chance to relive his life, but it’s a video game with stats and cool powers and such. Oh yeah, and a charge for overriding the way death is portrayed in the books.” Tanner opened the notebook and started writing down the charges, mumbling what he was writing.

Kaito’s head was spinning. Harry dies? Loading screen? Stats? And what was that about being in a video game? His head started to hurt. He decided not to ask further. Instead, he decided to ask about something he could understand. “So, those ‘charges…’ they’re the things that chafe with canon, right? Because I don’t remember Ron and Hermione ever betraying Harry.”

“That’s right! The charges are also supposed to be read to the Sue or Suvians before they are killed.”

Kaito looked back at the TV. The white bar, which he vaguely recognized from seeing one of his old colleagues working with a computer, had only filled up a tiny bit. “How long are we gonna be here?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“How long are we gonna be in this weird space?”

“Well, I assume until the game finishes loading…” Tanner’s eyes unfocused for a bit. “Oh, no! That’s a lot of loading screens we’ll have to get through.”

“Huh?” Kaito asked, his eyes growing wide.

“I checked the Words – that’s something you can do by unfocusing your eyes, you can read the words of the fanfic to see what’s next – and apparently we have a bunch of systems that have to be ‘installed’ before this chapter ends.” Tanner then opened his backpack and pulled out a rectangular device with a glowing blue screen. “Want to use the Remote Activator? We can portal to the next chapter.”

_Remote Activator… oh, yeah, that’s what they called the portal device._ “Tanner, that isn’t a Remote Activator.” Kaito said.

“What?” Tanner asked, visibly confused.

“Yeah, Remote Activators are thin and cylindrical, and have dials on them.”

“Huh? This is a Remote Activator. Hmm…” Tanner stared off into space.

“No, it’s not.” As proof, Kaito pulled out his own Remote Activator, which matched his description.

“What– oh. I vaguely remember seeing that. I think it’s an older model…” Tanner put his hand on his chin. “Well, anyway, let’s portal to Chapter 2.”

Tanner tapped and swiped on the touch screen, then frowned. He tapped a few more times, his expression growing more and more frustrated.

“Is something wrong?” Kaito asked.

“Uhh… yes, I can’t open the portal.”

“Why not?”

“It says, uhh…” Tanner tapped the screen again. “‘ERROR: Location does not exist.’”

“And… what does that mean?” Kaito asked.

Tanner didn’t respond, frozen.

“Hello? Uhh… partner? What does the message mean?”

Tanner finally registered that yes, that was a question that needed an answer. “Oh, sorry. Maybe... it hasn’t loaded in yet?” he suggested.

“What do you mea- oh.” Then the full realization hit Kaito. “So you’re saying we have to stay here until the ‘game’ finishes ‘loading?’”

“Uhh… yep, that’s pretty much it.” Tanner replied as he put away the Remote Activator.

An awkward silence hung in the air for the next few seconds.

“So… got a favorite color?” Kaito asked.

~*~*~*~

The agents spent the next eight hours reading and making small talk. Tanner had fetched a copy of the Harry Potter series for Kaito’s reading, but ended up having to phone his mentor for a Japanese translation thanks to Kaito’s faulty translator. A rather long time later, Tanner’s friend’s partner (a tall, dark-skinned man in shining white armor) appeared with the requested books. “Azeraath the Bold, at your service!” he said before leaving.

Kaito felt a little embarrassed, but Tanner didn’t think it was a big deal. “A lot of our tech is actually pretty unreliable.” he explained. “After all, this is a world that follows the Laws of Narrative Comedy.” When Kaito asked what these were, Tanner happily explained.

Kaito found Tanner to be a very good resource. He seemed to know everything there was to know about “fanfic culture,” and was happy to explain its terminology. Tanner’s enthusiasm as he explained every esoteric term was revitalizing, even if he kept getting distracted and pausing in the middle of sentences. Kaito couldn’t remember when he’d last been able to just sit down and talk to someone about something that didn’t relate to the imminent threat of starvation.

Sadly, all good things come to an end.

“So, there are people who really believe that their self-insert fantasies are better than canon?” Kaito asked.

Tanner squirmed a little. “Yeah, mostly 10-13 year olds who think they’re good writers when they really aren’t. You know how it is at that age…”

Without warning, the pair were thrown right into the middle of Number 4, Privet Drive. Tanner hit the floor headfirst. Kaito wasn’t so lucky: He hit his head on the corner of a desk, barely suppressing a loud yelp.

Kaito tried to stand up, but lost his balance and fell back down. He used the nearby wall to stabilize himself. Nothing was visibly wrong: The desk looked fine, the ceiling was perfectly boring, the walls were where they should be. But for some reason, the world felt… off, like it was all hidden behind a thick layer of fog.

“What’s going on?” he asked no one in particular.

Tanner, who was leaning against the wall next to the cupboard under which Harry Potter lived, unfocused his eyes and read the Words. “I think what’s wrong is that this is supposed to be July 30th, but the fic misspelled it as July 30st. Since July 30st doesn’t exist, that’s going to cause problems with the fic’s setting.” He pulled out his notebook and started writing. “Charge for poor grammar and uninteresting prose… can’t put my finger on why, but reading the Words is not really that… uhh… well, not that great.”

Slowly, carefully, Kaito took a few tentative steps away from the wall. He nearly lost his balance a few times, but he was starting to adjust to the dreamlike world of July 30st. In this way, he walked over to the edge of the stairs under which there was a cupboard, and looked around the corner.

Kaito made a sudden movement. Before Tanner knew it, his partner was right next to him, back flattened against the wall, face like he’d seen a ghost. “Huh?” Tanner asked, confused. “What are y-”

Kaito turned his head to face Tanner and insistently put his finger over his lips. Tanner gave him a blank look, but after a second, he got the message. He made to step away from the wall as quietly as he could so he could peer around the corner, but Kaito blocked him with his arm and insistently gestured for Tanner to back up against the wall. Suppressing a sigh of exasperation, Tanner did as he was shown. 

Kaito risked peering around the corner, where not!Harry was just finishing making his relatives dinner. There he saw Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and Dudley all sitting at the table while they watched the seven-year-old Harry work. 

“Why are they just sitting there?” Kaito asked. “Shouldn’t they be yelling at him or something?

“Uhh… I guess that’d be because… the Words described them as… well, nothing. It just says Harry’s finishing their dinner.”

“Ah.” Kaito said. “And why are they letting an 11-year-old near the stove?”

“It’s simple: They think he’s a maid… actually, that’s a good point. I’ll add it to the list.”

Tanner went back to looking at the Words and writing down more charges in his notebook, erasing and redoing the ones he felt weren’t recorded accurately. _Charge for making agents experience July 30st… Charge for letting an 11-year-old near the stove... Charge for redoing the exposition about the Dursleys badly… Charge for making Harry be super magical and speshul so that he realizes that the story about his parents dying in a car crash is fake… Charge for using words like “matriarch” and “patriarch,” it breaks the tone… I think. I can’t put my finger on it, but these things are really important. Actually, should I charge for something like that? I can’t decide…_

Tanner realized he’d written down his entire internal monologue. _Oops._ he wrote, crossing out that last charge.

Tanner looked up and yelped as not!Harry flew right by him and through the closed door of the cupboard under the stairs in a straight line. He felt Kaito clamp his hand over his mouth, saw his glare, and realized that he had screwed up again. The younger agent silently read the Words, realized what had gone wrong, and went back to writing in his notebook. _Charge for creating non-Euclidean space…_

But as soon as he wrote that, the agents were pulled backwards through the wall into the cupboard by a violent shift to “Harry P.O.V.” Their stomachs churned as a few hours passed in a moment, and before they knew it, not!Harry was repeatedly glancing at his watch as it counted down the 30 seconds remaining to midnight. 

Kaito tripped, almost falling, and put one hand against the wall to steady himself. His vision blurred, and the Words of the fic swam in front of his eyes as he breathed in and out, just trying to keep from throwing up. Between all the spatial distortions and July 30st and just the sheer effort of trying to digest everything he was learning, his stomach threatened to yield. He was vaguely aware that the replacement was right in front of him, but was too distressed to care.

25 seconds until midnight. Kaito’s head throbbed in pain, and he put his other hand on it. At the same time, he froze, eyes wide with fear as he really took in the fact that the replacement was right in front of him. It now occurred to him that something that could reshape the world into its own image must be powerful, powerful enough to kill him on the spot, and heartless enough to do it. He prayed the Stu wouldn’t notice him.

15 seconds. The Stu didn’t seem to notice the thief. Kaito relaxed the tiniest bit, and his eyes landed on Tanner, who was out cold on the floor nearby. He breathed a sigh of relief. From their limited interactions, Kaito had deduced that Tanner wasn’t a stealth type; if the Assassin were awake, it could be disastrous.

  1. He wondered if he should maybe wake Tanner up for assistance, but then again, he could always read the Words later to figure out what had happened. _Best not to risk alerting the Stu._



9.

8.

7.

6.

5.

4.

  1. Tanner began to stir as the replacement lay his head on the ground.



  1. Kaito held his breath, sensing impending disaster.



1.

The replacement allowed himself to fall asleep, somehow managing to do so in an instant. Just as Kaito breathed a silent sigh of relief, midnight came. The boy stood up with a gasp, the memories of his previous life coming back all at once.

Kaito’s heart nearly stopped as he made eye contact with the boy.

And in front of not!Harry’s face, a blue screen appeared.

**_Welcome Gamer._ ** **_  
_** **_To start the tutorial just say or think tutorial._ **

~*~*~*~

Kaito’s first instinct was to lie.

“Hello!” he said to the replacement in his most cheerful voice. “I’m Kaito Hoshino, from the… Hero Helpers Organization! Our mission is to guide heroes such as yourself on their journeys! It’s nice to meet you!” He offered his hand for a handshake.

“Heroes?” the replacement asked, obviously confused. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean, don’t you remember that long loading sequence with the TV and stuff? You’re a… ” Kaito racked his brains for something cool to call the replacement, something that would placate him. A term he learned from his limited forays into light novels surfaced. “You’re an isekai protagonist!”

“A what protagonist?”

“An isekai protagonist, yes! Someone who gets taken back in time to relive their life and do things right! That’s what the option thing you saw earlier was all about. One of our finest systems.” Kaito puffed his chest out a little to show some pride for his “company.”

The replacement nodded. “Yeah, I think I remember going to defeat Tom, dieing, coming back to life, and… **DUMBLEDORE! That manipulative, lemon drop sucking, old goat!** ”

Kaito feigned a look of disdain at Dumbledore’s name. He didn’t know what the Stu had against the wizard, but he could use it to his advantage. “Yeah, that guy. I know his crimes well. I really hope you take him down.”

“Hmm, so what should I do now?” the replacement asked Kaito. “How do I start my quest?”

“Uhh…” Kaito searched his mind for a suitable lie. “Actually, I don’t know.” he admitted. I’m not familiar with the new… uhh… the new system we implemented last week. Actually, I’m not familiar with anything at all. New employee, you see.” He gave a sheepish grin. “There’s no need to, really. The system is very… uhh… what’s the word… it tells you exactly what to do. I’m really just here to let you know we exist, and to give us a call if you need anything.”

“Oh. Okay!” the Stu smiled. “I’ll see you later then!”

“See ya!” Kaito said, waving goodbye. He turned toward the cupboard door to leave, then froze. Tanner was still out cold, and Kaito had forgotten to account for him in his lie. The Stu was completely absorbed in watching the blue screen in front of his face, which displayed a whole bunch of indecipherable English letters with numbers next to them. Kaito didn’t care what they said at the moment; his top priority was getting Tanner out of there before he woke up.

Kaito silently tiptoed across the cupboard under the stairs. He moved slowly, not making a sound, gently testing every plank to make sure it didn’t creak. Besides his talent for lying, Kaito prided himself on his stealth skills. Not a single movement was wasted as he made his way next to Tanner and kneeled down over his body.

Tanner’s eyes were already open. Kaito looked back to make sure the Stu was still distracted, then unzipped Tanner’s bag, wincing at the extra noise, and pulled out the Remote Activator. He carefully put it into Tanner’s hand, then put his mouth over his partner’s ear and whispered, “Get us out of here.”

Tanner took the RA and opened a glowing portal underneath the two.

~*~*~

The agents landed just outside the cupboard. Tanner stood up and stretched. “Good thing we’re out of there-”

“Lower your voice! He’ll hear us!” Kaito hissed. He tiptoed around the corner to make sure the Dursleys were gone, then whispered to Tanner, “Okay, the Dursleys are gone. Let’s go to the kitchen; we can talk there.”

Tanner followed his partner into the kitchen and took a seat on one of the chairs. “You know, maybe you should neuralyze the Stu next time – erase his memories. It’s less risky.”

“Well, I’m sorry that I forgot about the neuralyzer I’ve only known about for two days!” Kaito snapped as quietly as he could.

“Oh. Sorry.” Tanner said. “Well, next time, try to remember that Stus are all self-absorbed idiots. If they don’t acknowledge you, pretend they didn’t notice you, because they probably didn’t.” He stared at a wall and started mumbling to himself as he read the Words.

“Tanner, what are you doing now?” Kaito whispered.

“Oh, uhh, yeah-” Tanner said aloud-

“Quiet!”

“Oh, sorry.” Tanner promptly lowered his voice. “Anyway, I’m just reading the… uhh…” For a second, words left Tanner’s brain. “...the Words, you know, to find out what the fic’s doing.”

“Well, you do that and tell me what’s going on, because I have a feeling that I wouldn’t understand even if I could read English right now.” Even Kaito could feel his weak attempt at humor failing to even crack the ice.

“Alright, I’ll tell you as I read. So, uh, right now he’s… uh… redistributing his stats, uh… The fic, uhh, probably isn’t going to actually care about his stats, so he doesn’t need to do this. It breaks the Law of Conservation of Detail.”

_Who writes about statistics?_ Kaito thought.

“So, uh, now he’s going into his ‘Titles’ page, and… oh, no, you didn’t.” Tanner said darkly, shaking his head.

“What’s wrong?” Kaito asked.

“This replacement gave himself inheritances.”

“So… what? Doesn’t Harry have an inheritance in canon?”

“No, no, no.” Tanner said, waggling a finger and shaking his head. “One inheritance is _not_ enough for a Stu. It’s never enough.” He posed dramatically, his lips curling into a winning smile. “And now, thanks to the magic of badfic, ‘Harry Potter’ is now the heir of…” Tanner stared off into space as he listed off the names. “Potter, Black, Peverelle, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, LeFay, and Merlin.”

“Who even is LeFay?” asked Kaito.

“To be honest, I have no idea.” Tanner’s voice was slowly rising, a fact neither of them had noticed yet. “But she’s probably somebody _very_ rich and _very_ important and–”

“Tanner, could you please lower your voice?”

“...sorry.” Tanner looked down and slid his glasses back up into place. “Anyway, he also gets to get a cool ability with each heir/lordship title, picking one out of three.”

“What? Let me see.” Kaito crossed his eyes, a trick he’d liked to do with the other orphanage kids, and the Words of the fic themselves appeared right in front of him. The original Words. You know, the ones causing all the trouble. Which were in English. Which he couldn’t read… _Guess I’ll just have to rely on Tanner._

“And what are these abilities?” Kaito inquired.

“Does it really matter?” Tanner asked. “I’m pretty sure this isn’t- like- well, it’s just gonna be another excuse to make him speshul. He isn’t actually gonna use any of these abilities, because that would require good writing and clever usage, which any self-respecting Stu avoids like the plague.” Tanner puffed up his chest and adopted a tone of exaggerated self-importance. “I mean, who _wants_ to read a well-written story with sensible usage of powers when we could just watch The Adventures of Gary Stu And His Sixteen Million Abilities That We’ll Just Keep Piling On Even Though Most Of Them Will Not Even Get Used Once? I can’t see anything that might turn off readers at all.”

_Well, at least somebody got decent powers…_ Kaito thought, frowning.

After writing down the aforementioned charges in the notebook, Tanner went back to reading the Words. “Blah blah blah, more explanation of game stuff, blah blah blah, he has a bunch of perks and _is a locked Animagus?!_ ”

“Lower your voice!”

“...sorry. Just… _Why_ do they always go for the locked magic?” Tanner’s hand went next to his head as he spoke.“You can’t do that!” The sound of pen against paper filled the room for a minute, followed by the sound of Tanner narrating the Words. “Blah blah blah, he has an inventory he can put small nonliving things in, blah blah blah, oh, cool, it actually obeyed the Law of Conservation of Detail for once instead of going into extreme detail about how everything and their mother works! Blah blah blah… oh, _no._ ”

“What is it this time?” Kaito said indifferently.

Instead of trying to explain the horror, Tanner just read it off. “‘This screen holds your main and side quests. Main: Collect Tom’s Horcruxes (1/6), Defeat Albus and ‘Light Side’, Defeat Voldemort and ‘Dark Side,’ _fix Wizarding Britain,_ **_INTRODUCE MAGICALS AND-_** ”

Kaito gesticulated angrily at his partner. “Tanner, the Stu is _right there,_ you know!”

“...sorry.” Tanner looked down. “It’s just–”

“I don’t care what it just is! You have to lower your voice, or else he’ll realize we’re here!” Kaito hissed angrily. “See? I don’t even raise my voice when I’m mad!”

“...sorry. I’ll try not to do it again. Anyway, the reason is that this _idiot_ thinks foolishly, because he is an idiot, that one boy can magically fix all of Wizarding Britain’s problems, which are numerous because Britain is a society, and he thinks he can magically ‘introduce magicals and non-magicals without starting a war.’”

Kaito stifled a snicker. “What? He really thinks he can do that?”

“Yep!” The sarcastic bitterness in Tanner’s voice was unmistakable. “And not only that, he probably will thanks to the unhumble Gary Stu’s ability to ignore all rules of logic.” Kaito’s smile died faster than _Fall Guys_. “Besides, I think that a war wasn’t the reason magicals went into hiding…” Tanner looked pensive. “...no, wait, I’m wrong on that one. But still, that is blatantly an unrealistic goal. If one person could fix the world, someone would’ve done it already.”

_Solving the world’s political problems_ joined the other charges in Tanner’s notebook as he read through the Stu’s manipulation of the options screen. not!Harry’s Skills screen and its lack of any skills gave Tanner some relief, but it was short-lived: Next was the “daily gift” screen, which allowed Harry to claim a gift every twenty-four hours.

“Okay, Kaito, there’s a ‘daily gift’ screen, and–“

“What?”

“…no, I shouldn’t have mentioned it. It’s all part of the same charge: ‘Devising an entire game system just to make this one guy powerful.’” Tanner read on. “No, wait! Hold it! It’s not. Because the daily gift he just received is a full copy of the Harry Potter series. Fic, do you even _realize_ how much of a devastating impact that would have on a guy? Finding out that it was all a fiction? Or at least wondering why this book knows so much about your life. It’s just not sensical to do something like _that_ and not have him react.” He noted that down in the charge list. “Of course, we could take the copies when he’s dead…”

“Why waste our time, though?” Kaito asked.

“Well… because they’re there, and we can pick them up and find a use for them…” Tanner unfocused his eyes. “After that, he just gets 50 EXP for finishing the tutorial, and gets the skills ‘create’ and ‘escape,’ whatever those mean. It’s all part of the same charge.”

The agents stood in silence for a moment, each thinking the other would know what to do next. Finally, Kaito spoke up. “So, are we done with this chapter?”

“Oh, yes. We can go to the next. Just… uh… hold on…” After an awfully long time rummaging through his bag, Tanner pulled out the Remote Activator, set the destination to “Next Chapter”, and pressed “OPEN”.

ERROR: Portal could not be opened.

“What?” Tanner pressed “OPEN” a few more times.

ERROR: Portal could not be opened.

Tanner looked at his partner. “Sorry. It’s not letting me open the portal.” He pressed “OPEN” again.

ERROR: Portal could not be opened.

“Why?” Tanner asked.

ERROR: Portal could not be opened.

Reason: Temporal construct detected.

Construct Type: Linear Sequence Enforcement

Reason for existence: To make your life miserable.

“There’s some kind of temporal construct blocking the portal. Probably something to do with a lot of games having a linear storyline enforced by the code.” Tanner looked up. “Guess we’ll have to wait for the chapter break.”

“And when is that?” Kaito asked.

“Whenever he finishes with his options selecting, I guess.”

Kaito nodded. “I wonder what screen he’s on now?”

“I can find out.” Kaito put his hands in his pockets and stared off into the distance while Tanner set the RA to open a small portal into the Cupboard Under the Stairs, and peeked his face in. After half a minute, he returned, his lips pursed.

“So?” Kaito asked.

Tanner turned his face to his partner, looking a thousand yards through him, and said in a monotone of despair, “He’s still on the Stats page.”

~*~*~

It was a beautiful day on Privet Drive. The sky was a clear blue, the sun was shining, and the Dursleys’ backyard was a perfect rectangle of emerald green grass, except for a single man with an unshaven beard and a mustache who was just getting up.

Kaito suddenly sat up and looked directly at the sun by accident. He turned away to keep his vision. Was it morning already? How long had he slept? His heart began to race. His head quickly turned either way, looking for his stuff. He’d always been such a light sleeper!

As he spotted his bag next to him, right where he left it, his heart slowed down a bit. He picked it up, slung it over his back, and started searching for Tanner. When he didn’t find him in the backyard, Kaito cautiously, noiselessly made his way around the house, all too aware that the cloak of darkness had long since been lifted, and looked in the front yard. No Tanner.

Where could he be?

He snuck back around the house and cautiously opened the back door. His mouth immediately started watering as he smelled English muffins and sausages. He walked through the house on tiptoe to see Harry making the “Dursley” version of a traditional English breakfast: Three plates piled high with fried bread, five sunny-side-up eggs, too many sausages and strips of bacon to count, huge heaps of beans, and two baked tomatoes.

Kaito’s stomach rumbled in agreement with his brain: _Let’s swipe some of that first chance we get!_

**“Freak!”** Petunia shrieked, in a voice harsh even for her. **“Me and Dudley are going shopping today while Vernon is at work. After you are done cleaning up breakfast I expect you to stay out of the house until we get back at 3.”**

**“Yes Aunt Petunia.”** Harry replied.

Kaito was forced to watch as the Dursleys consumed the breakfasts that were rightfully his with utter dismay. His hand moved to take some, but he managed to hold himself back, even as he started to drool.

He watched with growing impatience as the Dursleys finished their breakfast and walked out, with the replacement putting away the leftover food. As soon as Harry followed them outside, Kaito dashed to the cupboard and opened it, nearly slamming the containers of food onto the table. He ripped off the top and shoved a handful of beans into his mouth. Delicious.

He was so absorbed in his activity that he didn’t notice the footsteps until he saw Tanner walk up to the table. “Uh… hi…” Tanner said.

Kaito swallowed what was in his mouth and looked up at Tanner, bean sauce (whatever it was called) still on his lips. “Where were you all this time?” he demanded.

“Sorry.” Tanner looked sheepishly at the ground. “You... know how I said I wasn’t a heavy sleeper?”

“Let me guess. You fell asleep somewhere?”

Tanner nodded. “I didn’t wake up until the scene shift transported me into Harry’s cupboard. I’m very sorry that I was late.”

Despite allegedly being a senior agent, Tanner was definitely new to this. He looked young, probably younger than Kaito, and he was making newbie mistakes all over the place. He was also very apologetic, which was annoying, but signified either genuineness or ego issues. Either way, ragging on him too much might hurt his feelings and damage their working relationship, and Kaito had a feeling that it would become important later on.

Really, though, he was just too focused on his food to care about Tanner ditching him at the moment. “Just don’t do it next time. What charges did you get?” he asked through a mouthful

Tanner couldn’t take his eyes off Kaito’s mouth, and the thief could _feel_ the younger agent’s judgment. Tanner kept it to himself, though, simply replying: “Multiple character dialogue in a paragraph, misformatting the stat screens…”

_So that’s why there was a long screen around Vernon’s head._ Kaito thought.

“…and also fast pace, now that I think about it. There are surprisingly few words for each action, like this Stu is trying to get the world record for how fast he can break canon. Actually, I’m surprised the breakneck pace hasn’t-“

He stopped himself mid-sentence, but the damage was done. Time accelerated and space compressed, and Tanner and Kaito found themselves in the forest, face down on the ground and very much out of breath.

Kaito stood up automatically, wiping his grubby hands on the dirt, then saw something that made him flatten himself back on the ground. Tanner tried to stand up, but Kaito pushed the younger agent back down and put his finger to his mouth. They looked up to see the Stu sitting down on the bench, acting upset about something. His idea of “acting upset” consisted of making obviously fake crying and sniveling noises while putting both palms on the bench and dangling his legs like some happy innocent kid.

A screen popped up next to the Stu, saying he’d gained the skill Acting and had already leveled it up to five. “No, that is not how it works, you cannot get Level 5 of a skill in _any_ game just from pretending to be sad once.” Tanner whispered, more for Kaito’s benefit than his own.

The Stu looked back and Tanner froze, his eyes wide open. Kaito gave the Stu a thumbs up and a toothy grin. The Stu smiled and went back to acting upset.

Kaito watched as a police officer walked over to Harry, introducing himself as Jeff and asking what was wrong. not!Harry put on a sad lost boy act, saying, “ **My Aunt took my cousin shopping and told my to stay out of the house while she was gone, s-so I was g-gonna go to the park, but I-I got lost and I don't know where I am!** ” complete with tears at the end.

Kaito frowned and shook his head at the obviously fake crying, but to the ex(?)-thief’s surprise, the officer fell for it. **"Well Harry, how about you hang out with me and some of my friends for awhile, if you tell me where you live I can tell your Aunt where you are, ok?”** he said, rubbing not!Harry’s back.

**“O-okay. I live at #4 privet drive sir.”**

**“No need to call me sir, just call me Jeff.”** The officer smiled at the replacement, took his hand and started walking him to the police station.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Kaito released his frustration in hushed whispers. “That ‘lost boy act’ was terrible. It’s a classic, and for a good reason as well, but he just couldn’t pull it off convincingly. And that stutter was obviously phoned in. Seriously, who’s dumb enough to fall for that?”

“Well, we are dealing with a reality-bender. Besides, he still looks eleven. Eleven-year-old boys typically have no reason to lie.” Tanner asserted.

“You’d be surprised.” Kaito muttered. “Shouldn’t the officer be at least a little bit suspicious of this random boy who magically shows up, knowing where he lives but somehow unable to navigate the town? He could be trying to swipe some kind stranger’s wallet.”

Tanner looked at Kaito like he was from another planet. “Well… uh… yeah, the point about the location is good… but isn’t it a police officer’s job to look out for lost boys?”

Somehow, Kaito had never thought of it that way.

“Well, we can debate all we want, but the fact is, we’ve still got a Stu to hit. Got the charges?”

“Oh yeah!” Tanner stood up and pulled out the notebook. “I forgot to mention: Currently he’s on a side quest to… uh…” Tanner checked the Words again. “ _Get away from the Dursleys…_ oh, come ON!”

“Shh!”

“…sorry.”

“What is it?”

“I missed a lot of charges.” Tanner got out the notebook and started writing, periodically checking the grassy forest floor for the grassy forest knowledge that lay beyond it. “Getting away from the Dursleys shouldn’t be a side quest, it should be a main quest, because he kind of has to do that. Entrance into the Wizarding World shouldn’t be a reward because it’s a main plot event, let alone a ‘bonus objective’ reward. Also, why is ‘no more Dursleys’ a reward? That is- well, the general gist is that plot points are generally not rewards.”

Kaito studied a very interesting dandelion.

“Also, _he has to stay with the Dursleys!_ If he doesn’t, he loses his magic protection from Voldemort. He can’t just… hmm, actually…” he stared off into space for a moment, imagining a scenario where Dumbledore decided Harry being abused by the Dursleys wasn’t worth the extra layer of protection. He could see it now: Harry telling Dumbledore about all the horrible things happening at home, Dumbledore storming into the house like an angry inferno and whisking Harry away where he’d be safe from them forever, prosecution by the Muggles’ Department of Child Services, the fic being praised as outright better than canon…

“Tanner?” Kaito called, bringing the younger agent back to the less well-written world of Harry Potter and the even less well-written world of powergamer fanfiction.

“Huh?”

“You done?”

Tanner checked the Words again and took a minute to mull it over. “…yeah, I think that’s everything. No, wait- the fic’s weird formatting just invented a character named He-Jeff.” Tanner scanned the area. “Well, there’s no mini, but it’s still a charge.” He looked to where not!Harry once was. “We need to get to the police station. Wanna try mentioning the-”

Another sudden time shift happened, and the agents were deposited in front of the police station.

“-breakneck pace again.”

Kaito was the first to get up, looking inside the window. He saw Jeff introducing Harry to a female police officer, Melody, whose stats were once again listed on Harry’s screen. Harry overreacted – intentionally, Kaito assumed – to Melody’s offer to play with toys. This made Melody look surprised. Then they went inside a room, and Kaito couldn’t see them anymore.

“Should we move in?” Kaito asked Tanner.

“…eh, I’d rather we not. I’m getting all the charges from the Words.” His eyes then widened. “Alright, Kaito, here’s a canon pop quiz: Is it Stuish for an eleven year old wizard to be able to consciously use wandless magic to build a replica of Hogwarts out of LEGOs, even if he’s already learned how to control magic?”

Kaito thought about this for a second. “You need a wand to do magic, right?” he answered cautiously. “That sounds pretty big.”

“…technically, you don’t, but you’re right. That level of wandless, nonverbal magic is waaaay beyond Harry’s level. Which means one more charge for the notebook.” Tanner noted the issue.

“So is that what’s going on?” One fact connected to another. “And he’s just… showing this magic to Melody, a Muggle, like it’s no big deal?”

“Oh, Melody’s a witch.” Tanner mentioned casually. “He figured that out from his Observe skill – those little screens that tell you people’s stats.” Tanner thought about it some more, and realized something: “Still, shouldn’t Melody be the least bit suspicious?”

As Tanner stared off into space to decipher the many crimes of Harry’s substitute, Kaito put his hands in his pockets and reflected about how similar this was to his old occupation. Both of them involved a lot of waiting around – waiting for a family to leave their apartment, waiting for the period between heroes’ patrol shifts, waiting for Tanner to write down the charges. There was also a lot of stealth, and the risk of capture…

Actually, what would happen if he did get caught?

A few feet away, Tanner frowned. “Kaito, the Stu unlocked Wandless and Nonverbal magic skills, and they’re already at level 25.” he whined parodically. “Oh yeah, and he just developed the ability to – sorry, that was too loud, please stop looking at me like that – the ability to insta-leech abilities from comics, TV shows, and books, because that is a real thing that happens and that people can do, which is how I got my degrees in law and advanced memetic science and mastered all four bending disciplines and-“

“You know what? You handle the charges. I’m not gonna understand any of them, anyway.” Kaito said. _The less you use that loud voice of yours, the better._

Tanner remained silent, unmoving.

“Tanner?” Kaito waved a hand in front of his face, causing Tanner to lean back.

“…actually, I think we should charge and kill now. This has dragged on long enough, and we’ve got the major breaks already. Let’s just go home.”

“So, are you going to show me how to kill this thing?” Kaito asked.

“…well…”

Tanner averted his eyes and looked down. He clearly had something to hide. “Well, what?” Kaito pressed.

“…I was hoping you could do that for me.” Tanner said sheepishly. “I… well… I’m just…”

“Aren’t you my senior agent?” Kaito asked. “I’ve got no problem doing it myself, but I think that maybe you should do it, since this _is_ my first mission.”

Tanner thought he heard slight nervousness in Kaito’s voice, and hesitated to say what he was about to say. What choice did he have, though? Endanger his partner, like he did last time? “Well… you see, the last time I killed, or _tried_ to kill, a Sue, I…” Tanner pursed his lips. “I shook and almost vomited and just couldn’t go through with it. And then I almost died. And also almost got my partner killed…”

Kaito sighed in frustration. He was really starting to resent this guy. “So, you’re saying I have to be the one to kill the Stu.”

“Yes.” Tanner said with shame.

“Even though this is literally my first mission and I have no experience with killing?”

“…well, I mean, that’s a lot of PPC agents. I’m actually an anomaly.” Tanner said, laughing nervously.

“Well, are you at least going to give me some tips?”

“Yeah, sure…” Tanner screwed up his face in concentration. “Surprise him from behind, then stab him in the back with a knife. Or go for the jugular. You could also stab him in the heart. Just… do it fast, before he has a chance to pull some power out from where the sun doesn’t shine.”

Kaito looked at the police station. One positive about being born with a nearly useless Quirk was that you learned to outsmart opponents much stronger than yourself, and a key part of that was having a plan of action. “You got a plan?” he asked.

~*~*~

Harry seemed to Melody to be an average neglected-wizard case. She knew the drill: Wizard kid left with normalcy-obsessed Muggles, grow up being told their magic is something to hide away and be ashamed of, have to be emancipated immediately to keep them out of the custody of the normalcy-addicts. Yes, the boy in question was _the_ Harry Potter, the only one to ever survive the Killing Curse, but that was completely unremarkable. It shouldn’t have been anything out of the ordinary for her.

Even so, she could not help but feel attached to this boy. Everything about him, from his impossible abilities to his superhuman intelligence screamed out at her to hold him, to love him, to remain true to him. And that was precisely what she’d been thinking about when the man bumped into her.

“Oh!” she said, startled. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” said the man. His voice was stilted, and he looked uncomfortable in his own skin.

“Is there anything we can help you with?” Melody asked.

“Yes.” Turning to Harry, the man said, “Generic Gamer Stu #980112, you are charged with…” He pulled out a notebook from his pocket and read from it. “Replacing the real Harry Potter, going for Manipulative!Dumbledore and fake friend!Ron and Hermione again, shoving game mechanics into Harry Potter for no reason other than to glorify yourself, and I think we can lump in consistently misportraying these game mechanics, or I guess, writing them in ways that don’t make sense...” 

“Sir,” Melody said, “is this a prank?”

The man looked up. “Uh, no.” he said. He continued: “Making PPC agents experience July 30st, having beige prose – and now that I think about it, no character – being super special and magical such that you realize that the story about the car crash is a fake, overriding the way death is portrayed in the books… um…, creating non-Euclidean space, nuking Law of Conservation of Detail, driving the Dursleys OOC, wasting our time by obstructing portal creation, misformatting stats screens, doing wandless and nonverbal magic at eleven… wait, that’s the last one.” He looked back up. “I’m Tanner Rice, from the Protectors of the Plot Continuum, and you are hereby sentenced to death.”

Just then, Melody felt a strong blow to her head and blacked out.

~*~*~

Without sparing a moment to watch Melody’s fall, Kaito dropped the plank and pulled a knife out of his pocket. He turned and stabbed the Stu in the chest a moment before Melody hit the ground. He’d expected the Stu to drop dead like an ordinary human. He had not expected the HP bar that appeared above the Stu, showing him dropping a mere 25 points from 300 to 275 HP.

Kaito suppressed the noise that rose in his throat, partially out of good larcenous habit and partially because it was an unbecoming noise for a 35-year-old man. Normally, his thief’s mind would have come up with another plan, but as panic has a negative effect on intelligence, all he came up with was stabbing the Stu again. And again. And again.

Surprisingly, he landed three hits before not!Harry realized that he was, in fact, being assaulted by the “representative of the Hero Helpers Organization” and was in imminent danger. He glared at Kaito, and the man felt his feet leave the ground and his arms held against the ceiling by an unseen force.

The noise escaped, a high-pitched scream born of nerves and fright that could easily have come from a four-year-old.

Something was off, though. Kaito searched not!Harry’s face for the slightest hint of betrayal, anger, even realization, but there was nothing but indifference. Was he really so stupid that Kaito hadn’t blown his cover yet? If that was the case…

“Congratulations!” Kaito said, smiling as best he could. “You passed the test! You’ve proven yourself worthy and capable of self-defense! What, you really thought that the Hero Helpers Organization would let a weak hero try his hand at saving the world?” He gave a laugh, trying and failing not to sound panicked. “You can put me down now!”

The Stu’s expression changed imperceptibly. Kaito’s heartbeat reached a fever pitch. Had the Stu swallowed his lies?

He got his answer when he was slammed against the floor, knocking the wind out of him. He barely had time to register the pain before being thrown over not!Harry’s head and against the far wall. Again and again he was thrown, the blood from his broken nose flying through the air and landing on the walls and the floor and the ceiling, the room morphing into a whirlwind of moving color. He slammed against the wall, briefly glimpsed Tanner looking at him with shock and fright, and screamed out for his partner to do something before being slammed against the wall one final time.

Kaito was allowed to fall to the floor. Groaning, hissing, and breathing hard, he looked down to see his hands badly bruised, his left arm bent beyond its natural range. The eleven-year-old menace stomped his foot, and Kaito painfully raised his head to look into the hateful face of Harry Notter.

“You lied to me.” The face said. “I trusted you. Honestly thought you were here to help me, but just like Dumbledore, just like those traitors Ron and Hermione, you betrayed my trust.” The kid took a step, and Kaito flinched. “Don’t worry, though. I’m used to this. This is almost too easy the second time around. Of course, the wandless magic helps…” Harry looked away, trying to think of something cool to say. After a millisecond, he gave up and silently opened the Edgy One-Liner Generator that had come with his gamer program. “You might be a liar, but you got one thing right.” Harry turned his face back to the cowering adult, and Kaito was overwhelmed by the choking weight – and artificiality – of his killing intent. “I _am_ the hero. I am the Multiverse Gamer. I am the end of all who oppose me, and no one shall ever, ever defeat me. And you? You’re just a Level 1 monster, an enemy to be farmed and killed in droves for free EXP-”

“H-hey, scrub!” Tanner yelled.

The Stu’s and Kaito’s heads turned to gape at the source of the insult.

“Y-yeah, you!” Tanner continued, his hands hiding something behind his back. “You’re a SCRUB! You hide behind all your buffs and fancy powers, but in reality, you’re just a special little snowflake!”

The Stu stormed over to Tanner, his face contorted into a symbol of pure fury. “You think I’m a scrub?” he said. “You think I’m some lo-skill n00b?”

_Oh, my God, he’s going to die._ Kaito thought.

“Uh...” Tanner closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and whispered something. Then he said, extra punctuation and all, “Yeah!!! Of COURSE I do!!! I bet if someone opened a portal underneath you that led to a… uh… a particular location I’ve set- someone else set, you wouldn’t even be able to handle it!!!” Tanner gave his partner a furtive wink and threw whatever was behind his back in Kaito’s direction. It hit the ground and slid, stopping a short distance away from him, and Kaito saw that it was Tanner’s RA.

“You wanna know WHY?!?!” Tanner continued. “Because!!! You!!! Are!!! An!!! IDIOT!!!”

It was an _incredibly_ easy code to crack, but it was working: the Stu wasn’t trying to foil Tanner’s plan. Keeping his grunts to himself, Kaito reached toward it with his right arm. _Shoot! Just out of reach._

Tanner’s ranting melted into a shriek – not quite as communicative as his very specific taunt, but Kaito got the gist of it. Summoning every last bit of strength left in his aching legs and only functioning arm, he flopped onto his belly, extending his reach just enough to pick up the device.

Tanner’s shriek evolved into full-on screaming, and Kaito knew he had to hurry. The screen showed a pop-up with a big red warning label, followed by an orange button with a four-letter English word. “OPEN.” He inferred the meaning of the word and pressed it.

Nothing happened.

He pressed it again and again, but it was futile.

Just as he was about to make peace with his death, he heard a faint blue hum and looked up at the ceiling to see what looked like several overlapping portals.

_Oh._

Kaito aimed the RA at the floor under the Stu and hit “OPEN.” Tanner’s attacker fell through it into the galactic center, and the life of Generic Gamer Stu #980112 ended with a metaphorical _RRRRRIP!_

Tanner fell one foot to the floor and landed on his feet, right at the edge of the Portal to Instant Death. He waved his arms to his sides to stop himself from falling. His glasses weren’t so lucky – they slipped off his nose and fell toward their doom.

“No!” Tanner yelled. He made a grab for the glasses, but they slid through his palms and into the morbidly obese maw of Sagittarius A*. “NO!” he yelled louder. “No, no, no, no, no…”

By scrunching up and pushing off the ground with his right arm, Kaito was able to get back on his feet. He limped over to Tanner, who was currently stepping to the side to avoid certain death and mourning the loss of his glasses.

“Tanner, you alright?” Kaito asked.

“Yeah, I guess… ” Tanner looked back up at Kaito, clutching his torso. “I’ve been spared. For some reason, he merely held me in place while he punched my stomach. But my _glasses…_ ”

“It’s okay, you can get them replaced.” Kaito assured him absentmindedly.

Tanner escaped the narrow strip of ground between the wall and the isekai portal to Deathy Death Land and hobbled over to Kaito, getting way too close to the guy. There was barely an inch between their noses before Kaito backed away.

“Uh… could you not do that?” Kaito requested.

“S-sorry, I just- well- m-my eyes aren’t good and I have to see what happened.” There was a note of distress in Tanner’s voice. “I mean, it’s my fault that-”

_Click!_

The hairs on the back of Kaito’s neck stood on end. He turned his head and looked down at the source of the noise to see Melody Crest, now conscious, aiming her pistol at his head from the floor. Tanner had a similar but delayed reaction, making a sound of surprise and fear, as Melody stood up and he found himself staring right into the end of her wand.

“Hands in the air, backs to the wall, both of you, right now!” the officer barked, gesturing with her gun. Both agents did as they were told, a common symptom of threat-of-death-itis. 

“Owowowowowowwwwww.” Kaito winced as he tried to raise his left arm. “Officer, I think my arm’s broken.” he said.

Melody looked at him with suspicion, but didn’t object. “I’m only gonna ask you two this once.” she said in a loud, authoritative voice. “Who are you working for, what are you doing here, and where did you take Harry Potter?” She narrowed her eyes at them. “And don’t try to pass off as Muggles, there’s no way I could’ve not noticed I had Harry bleeding Potter under my custody unless I was Confunded or something like that.”

“Well- uh-” Tanner stammered.

Kaito took one look at his distraught partner and said, “Uh… maybe I should do the explaining, Tanner? You look like you need a moment.” And by that, he meant “You look like you’re going to burst into tears any second now and I do _not_ want that.”

The door of the station suddenly opened, and everyone in the room swiveled their heads to witness a half-meter tall (1’8’’, for those on the inferior system) version of Jeffery Carson step through the threshold. “Hey, uh…” The situation in front of him – his partner aiming a gun at two guys sitting in front of a glowing blue circle – gave him pause. “Am I interrupting something?”

Kaito took advantage of Melody’s distraction and reached into his satchel, hoping to get the neuralyzer or the portal thingy or something – only for Melody to catch on and turn back. He slowly raised his hand again, giving her the most innocent look he could muster.

“Now, don’t you move.” Melody said as she walked over to stand next to He-Jeff, keeping her gun trained on the pair. “Jeff, what’s the last thing you remember?”

“Hmm, let’s see…” He-Jeff started.

“ _Tanner?_ ” Kaito said under his breath, leaning in to his partner. “ _What are we supposed to do with them?_ ”

Tanner took a few seconds to respond, and when he did, he did so with clipped words and random pauses. “ _Well, the first things being first, they’re- uh- not quite Sues._ _So we shouldn’t kill them. I-_ guess _we could reintegrate them into canon, but that means He-Jeff would have to be left out, since he’s a mini. Y-You know what? I say we just recruit them. I heard a rumor that the more agents we recruit, the more vacation time we get._ ”

“ _Wait, we can just… recruit people?_ ” Kaito whispered back.

_“Yeah!”_ Tanner said, the clipped words clearing up somewhat. _“Not like they can refuse… if they want to keep their memories.”_ The last bit sounded… unnecessarily conspiratorial.

Melody and He-Jeff stepped over to the agents, and Melody said to them, “Okay. Are you two Death Eaters? Is that what this is about? Are you trying to get revenge on Harry ‘cause your wittle Dark Lord went bye-bye?”

“No.” Tanner answered while He-Jeff gave Melody a look. “But we are a part of something else. Something bigger. Something that isn’t racist.” Kaito alone noticed the determination in Tanner’s eye to make up for his previous mistake. “And, if you want, you can be a part of it, too.”

~*~*~

“And this,” Tanner said, gesturing to the open door behind him, “is the Department of Personnel, where I used to work. However many doors down to the right or left after an indeterminate combination of left and right turns is the Recruitment Office, where you can get yourselves… uh…” The man trailed off as his train of thought came to a sudden halt.

“Recruited?” He-Jeff suggested.

“Yeah, recruited!” Tanner said with a smile. “So, go in there and… uh… get yourselves applied!” _Can they see sweat on my brow? Do they think I’m doing fine? Do they think I’m weird?_ Fighting these thoughts, Tanner forced out, “Wait times can range from Austrian efficiency to DMV timestopping depending on the time of day.” like a drug commercial announcer speeding through the side effects that he felt didn’t warrant your attention.

Melody looked around the Generic Hallway. “And I always thought we were the only ones who kept secrets from the world…”

“Yeah, we’re gonna have to talk about that.” Jeff – the original Jeff, whom Tanner had tracked down per Melody’s request – said. “Why didn’t you tell me you were a witch? I thought I could trust you.”

Melody looked guiltily at Jeff. “Believe me, I wanted to tell you, but that would’ve been illegal. I’d’ve been arrested and thrown in jail, and you would’ve gotten your memories altered. It was for the best.”

Jeff sighed. “I don’t know how much I agree with the magical secrecy policy…”

“Yeah, it’s kind of dumb, but all secrecy rules are.” Every pair of eyes in the entourage was now on Tanner, who realized who that also applied to and began backpedaling. “Well, unless the information in question is literally dangerous to the integrity of the universes you’re keeping it from. Which it is in our case! I mean, imagine how differently Harry would act if he knew about that. Total multiversal destruction, I tell you.”

“Well, I guess this is our stop.” He-Jeff said. He offered a tiny hand to the man thrice his size. “Thanks for showing us around.”

“No problem!” Tanner replied. “Just let me… uh…” He winced as he ever so carefully slid downwards against the wall, avoiding aggravating his injury, to shake the tiny man’s hand.

“You _sure_ you’re good?” Melody asked.

“Yeah.” Tanner said, bringing himself back upright. “I, uh, need to build up my pain tolerance anyway. Living a comfy life is really not a boon in this line of work.” He gave a strained, exaggerated grin that more closely resembled a grimace and gestured to his little entourage to enter the hallway, one hand on his stomach.

Tanner watched them until they were out of earshot, then slowly, silently breathed a sigh of relief. He limped away, and the consideration of how narrowly he’d navigated that situation and the phase space of negative thoughts the newbies might be having about him consumed his attention so thoroughly that the walls practically rearranged themselves to create a linear path to Kaito’s cot in Medical.

A grim-looking Water Tribe lady was adjusting a cast that turned all of Kaito’s left arm into the equivalent of a wooden pole. “Alright, just get plenty of bed rest, and you should be right as rain in about… three days.” she said. “I’ll be sure to tell Upstairs to let you be while you heal.”

Kaito smiled. “Hey, Tanner, look at me! My first day, and I already got myself some vacation.”

This made the doctor burst into raucous laughter.

“What? What’s so funny?” Kaito asked.

“I’m sorry, I just couldn’t resist.” the doctor said, wiping away tears. She gave Kaito the “bless your heart” look, saying, “You really are new here, aren’t you, dear?”

Kaito looked at Tanner for an explanation. “Is there something I’m not picking up on? I’m injured. My arm is broken. I can’t use my arm. It doesn’t work. Don’t I get a few days off to recover?”

Patients laughed. Doctors laughed. Diseases laughed. Humans laughed. Monsters laughed. Animals laughed. Vulcans cracked smiles. Minis laughed. Agents who were just visiting to get their meds or whatever laughed. Bit characters who were receiving culture implants laughed. Tanner doubled over, suppressing chuckles. Within seconds, every single living organism in Medical, and a few inanimate objects for good measure, was laughing except for Kaito Hoshino.

The man who wasn’t laughing looked around the room, desperately confused. “What? Isn’t that how jobs work?”

The laughter around the room intensified, and even Tanner couldn’t hold it in any longer. 

“So, what you’re saying is,” Kaito said slow-lee and con-tem-play-tive-lee, “that you’re supposed to go on missions and face down these powerful demons even if you have a broken arm?”

The laughs collectively sounded like, “Yep, that’s it!”

The doctor’s laughter slowed. “Well, not quite.” she said, wiping away tears. “Remember that Skele-Gro I gave you?”

“Yeah?” Kaito said. “And why are you looking at me like she just told me I had three weeks to live, Tanner?”

Tanner shook his head, averting his eyes. “Well… I don’t want to make the pain worse, but…”

“Make what pain worse?” Kaito pressed.

Tanner fixed Kaito with a thousand-yard stare, and darkly stated, “If you’ve taken Skele-Gro… you’re in for a _bad time_.”

Kaito gave the doctor a look, to which she shrugged. “Nothing I can do.” she said. “Upstairs wants agents back on their feet as soon as possible, and Skele-Gro is the best way to do that.”

Kaito sighed. “This is the worst first day ever.”

“Well, not exactly.” Tanner said. “You didn’t freak out and… oh, but you don’t need to know about _that._ So.” He turned to the Water Tribe lady and pointed to his torso. “It is my humble opinion that it would be ideal for the PPC’s Medical Department to spend time and money giving me treatment for what ails me.”

The lady laughed again. “ _What?_ ” she asked.

Tanner looked down. “It was an increasingly verbose meme joke…”


End file.
